The present invention relates to manufacturing of semiconductor devices, and more particularly to a semiconductor device having an inductor, an electronic apparatus including the semiconductor device and a method of manufacturing the same.
A radio frequency front-end module (RF FEM) is a key component in a wireless communication device, such as mobile phones, tablet PCs, and the like. RF switches and integrated circuits are key components used in RF front-end modules.
A RF front-end module includes capacitors and inductors. The Q value of an inductor determines the quality level of the RF FEM. Due to the loading effect associated with conventional chemical mechanical polishing process of copper, certain restrictions are imposed in in the pattern density of the metal lines, i.e., a virtual (dummy) pattern is designed in a relatively large blank area to meet the minimum pattern density.
A conventional semiconductor device (e.g., a RF FEM) may have a structure as shown in FIG. 1. The semiconductor device includes a front-end device 100, an interlayer dielectric layer 101 on the front-end, a connecting member 102 and a virtual connection (virtual pattern) 102′ formed of a metal material, an intermetallic dielectric layer 103 on the interlayer dielectric layer, an inductor 105 on the intermetallic dielectric layer. Front-end device 100 includes a semiconductor substrate 1001, a transistor 1002 disposed on the semiconductor substrate, an interlayer dielectric layer 1003 on the semiconductor substrate, and a metal plug 1004 disposed within the interlayer dielectric layer 1003. Additionally, the semiconductor device may also include resistors and other devices.
Because inductor 105 takes up a large area and the connecting member 102 is a metal (generally copper), it is necessary to set a dummy pattern 102′ in a blank area of the interlayer dielectric layer to alleviate the loading effect caused by a chemical mechanical polishing process during the formation of connecting member 102, as shown in FIG. 1. However, because the virtual connection (dummy) pattern 102′ is located below inductor 105, a significant amount of parasitic capacitance is generated between the inductor and the virtual connection pattern, which affects the Q value of inductor 105 and ultimately reduces the performance of the semiconductor device.
Therefore, it would be desirable to provide an improved way of manufacturing a semiconductor device, which avoids the drawbacks mentioned above.